


follow the star wheresoever it went

by dollylux



Series: Fic Advent Calendar 2015: Siblings, Husbands, Lovely Ladies, and Other Miscreants [18]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Civil War, Codependent Winchesters, M/M, Soldier Dean Winchester, Underage Sex, Weecest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-18
Updated: 2015-12-18
Packaged: 2018-05-07 11:37:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5455169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dollylux/pseuds/dollylux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Union soldier Dean Winchester gets a furlough to come home for Christmas. (Civil War-era AU.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	follow the star wheresoever it went

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Exaggerated_Specificity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Exaggerated_Specificity/gifts).



> day eighteen | prompt: luster
> 
> i'm a little in love with this AU. dean's letter was written with the help of many letters i read from soldiers home to their loved ones (especially their sisters, interestingly enough). [the thing about the drummer boys is a true story.](http://www.bilerico.com/2011/04/americas_gay_confederate_and_union_soldiers.php) the plot of this story is very loosely inspired by the 1994 film adaptation of _little women_ , one of my favorite books and movies. 
> 
> inspiration for dean: [one](http://www.civilwarroundtablepalmbeach.org/images/v24/uniform.jpg) | [two](https://southmountaincw.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/36462v.jpg)
> 
> inspiration for their house is orchard house, louisa may alcott's family home and where she set _little women_ : [one](https://louisamayalcottismypassion.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/the-orchard-house-snow-watermarked.jpg) | [two](https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/23/0d/ca/230dca4620e02836ac4b35cfe1a1768c.jpg) | [three](https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/91/95/c4/9195c4c331f0a930fb79d8dbc3a70b1c.jpg)
> 
> sam is 12 and dean is 16.

_Camp Near Ooltewah Tennessee  
Wednesday November 2nd, 1864_

_Dearest Brother,_

_It has rained for a whole week without pause here in Tennessee, and the roads are so muddy it makes any amount of walking near unbearable. After marching for twenty miles it is no comfort to lie down at night in the wet without any cover. I am tired past the point of humor. I can barely recall the light always to be found in your eyes or the small tucks of joy on either side of your mouth when you turn that smile on me. Johnny Sampson is here with me and he speaks often of his wife’s smile, of her dimples, and when he does I only think of yours._

_I do not recall if I told you but a few months ago I was so very near home that I could taste Momma’s roast chicken. Cptn was invited to a ball put on by the Mass. regiment, one that required the men to dress in our finest and play at being in society for a night. It was quite a shock, being in amongst the warmth and well-dressed gentlemen and with as much wine and food as I could take. There were a few women there, but some of the boy-girls (our drummer boys, dressed up in silks and lace) were so much better looking that they left. The soft little drummers were so beautiful I bet you could not have spotted them for being boys. Some of them looked good enough to lay with, and I know some of them did get laid with. I could not do it, sweetest brother. Not with all the wine in our young but dearly beloved country._

_Please know that though I am here beneath this leaking cover to get this letter off to you with no food and only bad water in my belly, I think eternally of you and my heart is North, nestled into our Home, with you._

_Write as soon as you are able and do let me know if you are in need of any stamps as I have many. Enclosed is my pay for the last two months. Give Momma my love but please save some for yourself._

_I still remain your adoring brother  
Dean Winchester_

_You must look_  
_At that above_  
_And then you will_  
_Soon write to your_  
_Brother love_

 

Momma had always gently teased Dean at how he dotes on Sam, about his near-smothering that Sam should have grown out of enjoying, but he never did.

He never has.

“Momma, what do you think Dean’s doing on this night? Right this very minute?” Sam sounds wistful and he is, staring outside the icy window at the snow falling without any hint at ceasing. It is the coldest winter Sam can recall in his twelve years of life, and he wonders if Dean misses Massachusetts where he is down South, if he misses all this snow or if he is grateful for the more temperate climates of Tennessee and Georgia.

“Well,” Momma sighs, twining the garland around the bannister with careful, methodical movements, “I pray that he is having a Christmas feast. That he is someplace warm and someplace safe, and that he can see that same bright star outside. Do you see it, Sammy?”

She’s behind him suddenly at the window, drawing the curtain back so she can peer out into the night and up, up, up.

“I see it,” Sam breathes, his heart racing with the sudden feeling of closeness with his brother, pressed so close to the window that his nose smudges the frost. He does indeed see it, can’t take his eyes off of it now that he does. “Tell me again about the star, Momma. Please?”

“That is the North Star,” she tells him, wrapping around him warm from behind, her tired fingers carding through his hair. “That is the star that shines for you and your brother. It got big and cold and bright when Dean left us to go to war, and it stayed that way because it shines right over our house. So whenever Dean sees it in the sky, he will know that he’s looking toward our home.”

“Toward me,” Sam whispers, tears in his eyes, the small curve of his chin trembling.

“Toward you,” she echoes in the softest breath before pressing a kiss to the top of Sam’s head. “Now, come away from the window. You know Dean would scold you for being so close to all that cold. Would you like to tie on the bows round the garland?”

Sam holds in a sigh because, young as he is, he knows this is a dreadfully hard holiday for his mother, too. That this is when she misses Daddy the most fiercely, that she must miss him as much as Sam misses Dean. Only Dean will come back to Sam, and Daddy is asleep in the ground where he and Momma brought him flowers yesterday.

Dean will never sleep in the ground, not without Sam in his arms.

Sam gets the last bow tied at the foot of the stairs when he hears it. It is not a sound, not precisely, but more of a rush of movement, of energy, from outside.

“Momma?” he calls, afraid. He knows Daddy’s old rifle is by the door, knows exactly where to hide in the house if anyone were to come in by force. Sam is still small for his age, and he knows already that his strength is not in fighting, in protection. That is Dean’s strength, that is what Dean is doing right now, out there. He is protecting Sam, protecting their family.

“Momma!” he shouts again, a sob caught in his throat. He can hear boots in the snow drawing nearer and nearer to the front door, and he turns just in time to see Momma and Miss Ellen come rushing into the room, their faces smooth with fear and concern.

“Sam, don’t shout,” Momma scolds him, sounding breathless, startled. Her hands come to light on his shoulders just as the doorknob turns, and Sam barely hears Miss Ellen’s cry of “oh my Heavens!” as the door is pushed open, the winter breaking in as a bone-crushing rush of cold and snow, and suddenly, beyond all hope, Dean is there.

Sam can only stare, every single muscle in his body frozen, his eyes wide and he doesn’t think he will ever blink again because Dean is here, Dean is _real_ , frozen-cheeked and right in front of him. He looks so handsome in his blue uniform, his shoulders broader than they were nearly a year ago but his waist is slim under his black leather belt. His face is pale, thinner than Sam remembers but it’s nearly hidden beneath the full scruff of his dark blonde beard, mustache, and sideburns. His eyes are right on Sam and he’s grinning and he’s _real_.

Momma and Miss Ellen rush toward him in a flurry of cries and exclamations and warm hands on his winter-rosy face, and Sam can do nothing but crumple where he is, but sink to his knees on the hardwood floor and let the tears fall.

“Sammy,” comes Dean’s voice, finally, and it’s so much deeper than when he left, when he was just a stubborn boy of fifteen, determined to take his father’s place in the war after his body was brought home. He’d signed up and used his height to his advantage to convince them he was eighteen, and he’d left before dawn one morning, leaving Sam warm in bed with silent tears streaming down his face.

There’s a rush of boots and Dean is suddenly everywhere, on his knees right there in front of him, his cold cold hands on Sam’s cheeks, his nearly unknowable face so near his own, his hot breath rushing over Sam, straight up into his nostrils.

“Baby,” Dean whispers and it’s so low and aching and ground out that Sam awakens at the sound of it, he blinks through his tears and looks up to meet Dean’s eyes, finding tears there as well, making the green in Dean’s eyes as bright as the tree over on the table nearby. “My love.”

Sam throws his arms around Dean’s neck and lets himself be lifted, first onto his feet and then into Dean’s arms. He can feel the quiet, watchful gaze of Momma and Ellen behind Dean, but they don’t matter, not right now. He tucks his face into Dean’s neck, a cold brass button digging into his cheek as he lets out a sob from deep within, someplace Sam didn’t even know existed, a place of relief and joy instead of fear and prayers and dread.

Momma wraps her arms around both of them, handing Dean’s hat to Ellen so she can stroke through his sweaty hair and kiss the side of Dean’s face.

“Ellen, throw another log on the fire and fetch us a blanket. My boy here is freezing,” Momma says, her normally steady voice trembling with excitement. “Come, Dean. Sit by the fire and warm up.”

“I don’t know if I’ll ever warm up again, Momma,” Dean sighs as he lets her guide him to the chair in front of the fireplace. Sam stays where he is, wrapped around his brother and ending up tucked in his lap like a child when Dean settles into the chair, their father’s chair. “I had to walk from the train station because there were no horses left by the time I arrived.”

Ellen drapes a blanket over Dean and Sam and pulls out the footstool to prop Dean’s feet up. Sam watches with quiet eyes as Momma pulls Dean’s boots and wet socks off, her strong hands rubbing warmth back into Dean’s reddened, curled feet.

“All our prayers are answered,” Ellen says with tears in her warm brown eyes, reaching down to make sure Dean is covered up well by the blanket. “Mrs. Winchester, I shall boil some water for our soldier to have a bath.”

“Thank you, Ellen. How are you home, my beautiful boy?” Momma reaches up to cup Dean’s cheek and drop kisses all over his face, smiling against his skin while Sam looks on, his arms tight around Dean. “How are you home to us on Christmas Eve?”

“I applied for a furlough near the end of summer only to have it ignored. I wanted to travel home and see you before it got too cold, but nearly all the other boys had the same idea. Nobody wants to travel in the winter, and so in winter it was granted.” Dean has his arms around Sam, one of his big, thawing hands cupping nearly one whole side of Sam’s face; cheek tucked into his palm, fingers in Sam’s spoiled-child clean curls, thumb stroking along the apple of his cheek and over Sam’s beauty mark, over and over. Sam closes his eyes and melts against him, nose pressed to Dean’s sweaty neck so he can breathe him in.

“How long can I have you?” Sam asks softly, mouth pressed to the heel of Dean’s hand.

“For thirty days,” Dean whispers with a smile against Sam’s temple before he buries a secret kiss there. “And I will not leave your side for anything in the world while I am here.”

 

Momma forces them apart so that Dean can bathe and shave as he is eager to do, and Sam busies himself with changing the sheets on Dean’s bed, the one that has been their bed for most of their lives, unbeknownst to anyone save perhaps Ellen. Sam hasn’t been allowed to sleep in it since Dean has been gone, and he has barely had the heart to go into the room, to be surrounded by Dean’s things and their paused life and the faded memories of the quiet love they shared there.

He makes the bed with a gladness he didn’t know he possessed, and he goes about tidying up the room, lighting a candle in the corner so that Dean has some warm light to see by when he comes in later.

He ventures back downstairs and helps Miss Ellen set the table; shining up each fork and knife before placing them by their fine but faintly chipped china plates.

The war hasn’t been kind to anyone.

Dean comes back downstairs in a warm wool sweater Momma had knitted for Daddy, a pair of soft grey trousers, and the thickest socks Momma had been able to find without holes in them. He’s clean-shaven now, his young, tired face bare and pale and so suddenly familiar that Sam finds himself crying all over again.

He eats dinner in Dean’s lap, scolded by Momma and Ellen the whole time, but Dean only keeps him tucked up close, a hand gripping high on the back of Sam’s thigh to keep him in place while they share nearly three plates of food.

Dean regales them with stories of the war, with tales of men they know from town and their fates, with the wickedness of Confederate soldiers and even those on their own side. He tells them of rotten food and violence surely censored for his audience and about the beautiful, ancient hills of Tennessee and Georgia, about the blazing sunsets there and the fireflies that come out at night on warm summer evenings.

After dinner and in front of the fire once more, he pulls an orange out of his haversack and holds it up like a gold coin for Sam’s starry eyes. They peel it and eat it together while Momma and Ellen dress the tree, Sam’s fingers sticky, dripping with the bright juice that Dean licks off with a relish he hadn’t even shown at the dinner table. Sam watches him lick and lick until his hands are clean of juice and shiny with Dean’s spit, and they nestle in close in the high-backed chair, staring deep into each other’s eyes, sharing wordless promises of what the night upstairs, in their bed, will bring.

Miss Ellen has a fine, low voice, and she starts the singing as they all gather at last in front of the fire, the candles lit on the tree, the whole house smelling of pine and burning applewood and the damp wool of Dean’s clothes drying by the fire.

Momma is mending Dean’s coat, bent over her work as she sews on a missing button, the brass lustering like the sun in the light of the fire. She has a sweet voice, just like an angel, Daddy used to say, and she joins Ellen in song, the sound of them singing “O Holy Night” like a spirit moving in the warm, love-filled room.

Dean joins in at “The First Noel”, his voice a low, honeyed scratch against the side of Sam’s heated cheek, all the grit of war gone from him as he lifts his voice with the higher notes, and Sam can only close his eyes and listen, tears falling silently from his eyes while he holds onto Dean like they’re flying. Dean is wrapped around him so tight, so completely that Sam doesn’t know how much of him is even visible.

He awakes to movement, to Ellen and Momma’s voices far below while he is carried up and up in Dean’s strong arms. He stays still in them, trusting Dean without an ounce of hesitation, watching through sleep-heavy lashes as Dean walks them into his room and closes the door. The house is quiet except for the bitter wind beating against the windowpanes when Sam stirs in Dean’s arms, lifting his head to catch Dean’s mouth in their first kiss in ten months.

Dean groans like it hurts as he gathers Sam up deeper in his arms that have gotten immeasurably stronger since they last held Sam like this, and his tongue slides into Sam’s mouth like it’s seeking sanctuary. Sam shivers all over, letting out a hot puff of air as Dean explores the slick insides of his mouth, as their lips, chapped and sore from underuse, glide together, wetted by their mingled saliva.

“Need you,” Dean husks against his mouth just before his perfect teeth sink into Sam’s fattened bottom lip. Sam arches deep around the pull of Dean’s hands that grip at his ass so desperately that it’s almost violent. Sam can feel a hot rush of tears from Dean’s eyes, can feel them where their cheeks are pressed together. He cups Dean’s face and rests their heads together, panting against Dean’s trembling mouth.

“Let me get ready. It will only take a moment,” Sam promises him, dropping down gently from Dean’s arms and wiping away the tears on his newly shaven face. “Get under the covers and wait for me.”

He dashes out of the room on silent boy-feet, crossing the hall to the bath. He relieves himself in the toilet, making sure he’s empty before he wipes himself clean with a cloth dipped in nearly freezing cold water. He changes into his nightshirt, wearing only that small slip of fabric and nothing under it as he slips back through the dark hallway and into the room where Dean is waiting for him.

He pulls the door closed behind him and lets his eyes adjust to the dim light from the candle on the nightstand. Dean is in bed wearing nothing but his drawers that are unbuttoned, the hot, red line of his stiff cock standing up out of them. Sam licks his lips and walks toward the bed, his eyes never straying.

Dean grabs him before he can even climb up to join him on the bed, snatching him off his feet and bearing him down onto the mattress and covering them both with the thick blankets and quilts. Sam gasps when Dean pushes his thin legs apart, when he feels the heft of Dean’s body slip between his pale thighs, hot and hungry like only a man can be.

Dean kisses bruises onto his mouth as he ruts against him like a dog, grinding his cock against Sam’s little one until it’s just as stiff and leaking as his own. Sam pants into Dean’s mouth, his arms tight about his neck, dizzy with how hard Dean is kissing him, with the love he feels coursing between them right now like a circuit, with how much his insides ache with the need to be stretched.

Dean’s fingers are suddenly right there, right where Sam needs him, and Sam cries out, his body jolting under Dean’s while his hole is rubbed with the olive oil they keep tucked under the mattress.

“I promise we’ll take our time later,” Dean tells him, his breath hot and panting into Sam’s mouth, “but right now… oh, Sammy, right now--”

“Take me,” Sam gasps, pushing down against Dean’s fingers just as Dean slips them inside of him, two whole, thick fingers, rough with callouses and strengthened by a hard life, pushing straight up and curling inside of Sam’s freshly cleaned body. “Dean, please. I need you to.”

He can hear the dirty, slick sounds of Dean coating his prick with oil and then those fingers leave him, replaced by the living, scorching throb of Dean’s cockhead. Sam strangles out a whine, his eyes blown wide in the candlelit room, staring right up at Dean’s beautiful face that is slack with bliss.

He knows somewhere in the back of his mind that he’s too young for a cock as big as Dean’s, that he’s not a very big boy, not yet, and that every time Dean finishes with him, his insides are ruined for days. But he also knows that he’s too young to be the man of a household, to have lost a father to a war that threatens every single day to take his brother from him, too.

This, Dean pressing inside of him, filling him until it feels like even his throat is swollen with cock, is the only thing that brings him comfort. And he has never spared more than a few seconds to any guilt for it.

Dean forces him open, muscles his way into the virgin tightness of Sam’s of little body, slides in until he’s completely rooted, the soft tangle of his pubic hair scratching against the swell of Sam's taint and his tight, silken pink balls.

Sam is completely gathered under Dean then, covered by him, Dean’s arms so strong as he holds Sam, his face tucked into Sam’s neck. Sam closes his eyes and forces himself to breathe, to soften up inside for Dean enough for him not to feel choked. He strokes through Dean’s hair, dirty nails dragging along his scalp as he presses kisses along Dean’s hairline, licking away the sweat gathered there.

“Don’t make a sound, Sammy,” Dean murmurs against his neck, fingers pressing hard along Sam’s spine as he starts to fuck him. Sam buries his face in Dean’s hair, arms desperate and clutched around his neck, hiding soft, hitching little sobs against the top of Dean’s head while he’s torn open by his brother’s cock in quick, careful thrusts that won’t make the bed squeak.

His knees knock against Dean’s ribs before they tuck under his armpits, spreading Sam open wider around Dean’s body even as he’s folded up, making a tighter trap for Dean to force open. It’s the best it’s ever been, it hurts more than it ever has since the first time when he was truly too little and Dean was fumbling and rough with his eagerness, but it’s exactly what Sam needs, what he has dreamt about all these long months apart, it’s an unignorable reminder that Dean is here, that the heaven moving inside of him is the boy who has held his heart since before Sam knew how to say his name.

He comes apart completely untouched, just shivering beneath his brother and all around his cock that feels enormous and heavy inside of him, ruining his hitched-up nightshirt and clutching at his brother with his arms and his legs. He whimpers as Dean fucks him through it, the wide flare at the tip of his prick holding Sam open so wide that his thighs shake.

“Dean,” he gasps, tucking his face down, seeking out Dean’s mouth that finds him in the dark, that slides against his own so that Dean can lick at him while he spends between their grinding bodies.

Dean’s thrusts get harder then, making the bed shake almost dangerously loud, the steady rhythm of it so telling, so scandalous that it makes Sam blush even as he’s licked into by his brother’s greedy tongue. He feels it when Dean starts to spend inside of him, can’t help it, it’s so close down there, so tight and intimate because of how tiny his hole is even when it’s being held open wide by dick; he feels every pulsing jerk of Dean’s prick when it shoots load after load inside of him.

They search each other’s eyes while Dean gives it up to him, while he fills Sam with his burning seed, and it’s so much that Sam feels swollen with it. Dean hand finds its way between them, pressing firm on Sam’s lower body like he knows exactly what Sam had been thinking, like he wants to feel how distended Sam is, too.

Dean gives one final, violent push like a punctuation, grinding in deep while Sam flutters around him, milking at him. Sam smiles dreamily when Dean sinks down on top of him finally, his full weight making the bed whine when he settles in, practically suffocating Sam but it’s exactly what he wants.

“Merry Christmas, my dearest little one,” Dean whispers against his mouth, hand up to push Sam’s hair back from his face, both of them ignoring how his fingers tremble as he does. Sam strokes up and down Dean’s back, over the still-soft curve of his ass that he squeezes adoringly. Sam smiles into the kisses Dean can’t seem to stop giving him, and the candle near the bed finally goes out, the wick burnt away, leaving them in utter, cradled darkness.

**Author's Note:**

> on december 22nd, 1864, general sherman presented lincoln with a priceless gift: the city of savannah, georgia. savannah was one of the last major ports that remained open to the confederates, and its sacking marked the beginning of the end of the american civil war. 
> 
> the war ended april 9, 1865; dean would only have to endure a few more months of being a soldier after this story was set.


End file.
